Germans
The Germans ( ) are a West Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe, sharing a common German ancestry and culture. The German identity originated from the German-speaking communities of the Holy Roman Empire. The German ethnicity can be decided on a couple factors: ranging from ancestry itself, national and ethnic affiliation, to native speakers of the German language. The last factor can conflict, as there are countries with German-speaking majorities (Austria, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein) whose people do not consider themselves ethnically German, despite natively speaking the language. In addition, there are millions more of people with German descent, partial or full, living in the United States, Argentina, Canada, Russia and Kazakhstan making the German ethnicity contain one of the biggest diaspora populations. The German people also made great pivotal contributions to the Classical, Baroque and Romantic eras of music and the Renaissance Era of Europe. History 'Early History' The Germans are native to central Europe from group of tribes known as the Germanic people at the time. The real emergence of a German ethnicity that is bind together by a common language was formed during the Dark Ages, spanning land that is now Germany and Austria. The central Germanic tribes that eventually became the Germans were annexed by the Roman Empire in the province known as Germania, a multi-ethnic kingdom, that was made of many European and non-European ethnic states, such as Latinic, Greek and even Arab states. 'In the Roman Empire "Germania"' Migrations dominated the Germanic-speaking realm around the third century B.C. The Romans and Germanic tribes made their earliest contacts around the second century B.C., when members of the Cimbri and Teutoni tribes crossed into Southern Europe. Modern-day knowledge of the ancient Germanic tribes can be owed to the Roman historian Tacitus, in his book Germania. In this work, Tacitus describes the various Germanic tribes, their locations as well as their relations with the Romans. The Germanic tribes dominated much of the Roman Legion, the elite military forces of the Roman Republic. Settling around the west bank of the Rhine River, then a Roman province known as Germania Inferior, the tribes of Menapii, Batavi, Condrusi, Atuataci and Eburones resided. On the other side, on the around the eastern banks of the Rhine where the Frisii, Chaucii, Istavones, Sicambrii, Marsii, Cattii, and the Ubii. The Ubii contributed to the Roman army, providing them with much-needed cavalry. In the south of Germania Superior dwelled the Triboci, Rauraci, Nemetes, Caracates, Sequani amd Helvetti. Across the Rhenus and farther east along the Danube was the home of the Marvingii, Nariscii, Burgundiones, Hermundurii, Seubii and the Cheruscii. Between 166 and 180 AD Marcus Aurelius battled the Marcomanni and Quadi tribes around the Danube River.http://www.unrv.com/provinces/germania.php 'The Frankish Kingdom 481-843 A.D.' The people known as the Franks originated from the tribes of Germania Inferior. They would form what would be referred to as the Frankish Kingdom ( ). The Franks were a war-like people. In 358 A.D., the Romans and Franks signed a treaty which allowed the Franks to settle in Roman-controlled territory between the Meuse and Schelde Rivers. In return, the Franks would provide the Romans with military support, such as recruits. The result was growing Frankish influence within the empire, with the formation of an autonomous Frankish state. 'Merovingian Dynasty' The Salians were the tribe that dominated the Frankish peoples. They were later referred to as Merovingians, taken from their ancestor Merovech. According to Frankish folklore, Merovech was of divine descent. The Salians were known for uniting the Frankish tribes during the 5th century. The Franks/Merovingians ascended to glory under the reign of Clovis. A fierce ruler, Clovis not only defeated rivalling Frankish kings but he also defeated Roman Emperor Syagrius. In doing so, Clovis had defeated and conquered the last remains of the Western Roman Empire. IN 496 A.D., Clovis defeated the Alemanni, in which the tribe's name would become one of the namesakes of the German people. His queen consort, Clotilda influenced and eventually goaded him into converting to Roman Catholicism rather than the rivalling Arian Christian section the other Germanic tribes followed. Clovis conquered Aquitaine (today located in modern-day France) in 507 A.D. Clovis later became appointed as a Consul of the Eastern Roman Empire. This gave the Frankish even more power and political influence and prestige. After Clovis died in 511 A.D., each of his four sons ruled a portion of the kingdom. Up until 531 A.D., the Merovingian realm underwent a period of civil war. Beginning 531 A.D., the Franks continued to once-more conquer large swaths of territory, defeating and conquering the Burgunidians by 534, Ostrogoths and Province by 537 and exerted influence over the Bavarians. The divisions between the Merovingians themselves spawned three independant Frankish states, namely Nuestria, Austrasia and Burgundy. The split was exploited by the conquered Germanic peoples in an attempt to wage war against the Frankish rulers. After Frankish king of Austrasia Dagobert I died in 639 A.D., the Thuringians achieved their independance. Brtianny, Bavaria and Alemannia soon followed. 'Carolingian Dynasty ' Frankish power was restored under the reign of Charles Martel, who after the fall of the Merovingians, ruled under the next ruling dynasty: the Carolingians. In 732 A.D., the Franks fought back an Arab invasion. Under Carolingian rule, the Franks re-conquered some of their lost territory, namely Bavaria, Thuringia and Alemannia in 744 A.D. They also conquered the Balearic Islands (located in modern-day Spain). In 751 A.D., Charles' father-in-law Pepin the Short overthrew the last Merovingian king. In 771 A.D., Charlemagne became the undisputed ruler of the Franks. In 774 A.D., he conquered the Kingdom of Italy and integrated it into his empire. From 772 to 804, Charlemegne subjagated the Saxons to his rule, through brute force and fear tactics. In 844, Charlemagne died. Like most empires after the deaths of conquerers, the Frankish Empire was divided into fueding states.http://www.tacitus.nu/historical-atlas/francia.htm 'Protestant Reformation' Main Article: Martin Luther and the 95 Theses at History.com In the sixteenth-century in Europe, some theologians and scholars were beginning to question the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. It was also around this time that translations of original texts—namely, the Bible and the writings of the early church philosopher Augustine—became more widely available. The religious leader, Augustine of Hippo, a Berber from North Africa (340–430) had emphasized the primacy of the Bible rather than Church officials as the ultimate religious authority. He also believed that humans could not reach salvation by their own acts, but that only God could bestow salvation by his divine grace. In the Middle Ages the Catholic Church taught that salvation was possible through "good works," or works of righteousness, that pleased God. Luther came to share Augustine’s two central beliefs, which would later form the basis of Protestantism. Meanwhile, t he Catholic Church's practice of granting "indulgences" to provide absolution to sinners became increasingly corrupt. Indulgence-selling had been banned in Germany, but the practice continued unabated. In 1517, a friar named Johann Tetzel began to sell indulgences in Germany to raise funds to renovate St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Committed to the idea that salvation could be reached through faith and by divine grace only, Luther vigorously objected to the corrupt practice of selling indulgences. He wrote the "Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences," also known as "The 95 Theses," a list of questions and propositions for debate. Allegedly, he defiantly nailed a copy of his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle church on October 31, 1517. The 95 Theses, which would later become the foundation of the Protestant Reformation, were written in a remarkably humble and academic tone, questioning rather than accusing. The overall thrust of the document was nonetheless quite provocative. The first two of the theses contained Luther's central idea, that God intended believers to seek repentance and that faith alone, and not deeds, would lead to salvation. The other 93 theses, a number of them directly criticizing the practice of indulgences, supported these first two. On January 3, 1521, Luther was excommunicated after being see as a heretic from the Catholic Church.http://www.history.com/topics/martin-luther-and-the-95-theses 'Classical Era of Music' Main Article: Top Classical Composers on About.com '' Spanning seventy years, the classical period is a time when composers began pulling in the reigns of the many baroque period musical styles by creating strict compositional "rules and regulations." Yet within their rigidity, great composers like Haydn and Mozart were able to create some of the greatest classical music the world has ever known, though they weren't the only composers responsible for superb classical period music. This classical era of music was mostly dominated by German and other Central European composers of people such as Wolfgang Mozart and Ludwig Von Beethoven. 'State of Prussia 1525-1871' In 1804, a military general named Napoleon Bonaparte became French emperor. An extremely skilled war general, Bonaparte's armies quickly swept through central and western Europe, crushing any army that faced his way. Forming a coalition with Russia and the United Kingdom, the Prussian and British armies finally defeated Bonaparte's army in 1815 during the Battle of Waterloo - after nearly a decade of miserable failures. In 1871, the Germans were finally unified. This was known as the Unification of Germany which turned the state of Prussia into the German Empire (1871-1819) with Wilhelm I as its emperor. During the Industrial Revolution, Europe and the United States underwent an age of progress in technology. 'World War I 1914-1919' The early decades of the 1900s were marked by countries' thirsts for global domination. In Europe, countries such as Britain, France, Germany and Russia were amassing armies and navies. It also saw the use extensive use of machines in the military for the first time in history by the large countries, those mentioned above. The smaller countries were still using cavalries. Following the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Austro-Hungarians attacked Serbia, an ally of the Russian Empire since the militants responsible were Serbs. The Imperial Russians attacked the Austro-Hungarians, which was a German ally which in turn caused the Germans to retaliate against the Russians. Despite early failures, the Germans were able to capitalize against the Russians, who were not as advanced and lacked unity due to a communist revolution that was taking place. The Germans also invaded France and Belgium which resulted in the other Allied powers such as Britain and France to retaliate. The Germans also urged Mexico to join its side, and sunk innocent and un-armed American ships in the Atlantic Ocean, which led to American intervention. The arrival of American soldiers turned the tides for the allies. Germany was eventually defeated and forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles, a treaty that blamed Germany for the war and forced it to agree paying large war reparations that was destined to last until 1975. The Treaty of Versailles created a deadly turmoil for the Germans. Their economy was completely devastated, let alone having to pay large, expensive and nearly unaffordable war reparations to the allies. Germany's army was also reduced to no more than 100,000 men and were no longer allowed tanks and planes. 'Nazi Germany 1933-1945' Adolf Hitler, an Austrian revolutionary, siezed power and turned Germany into a socialist and police state in 1933. Hitler used a party known as the "Nazis" to dominate Germany, which had once been nothing more than a worker's political party. Vying for revenge against the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler amassed Germany's army and built massive war machines such as tanks and the ''Luftwaffe plane. Hitler's dictatorship became a reminiscent of Stalin's - from the Soviet Union in the east, Europe felt most threatened by both. Like Stalin, Hitler took part in anti-semitism, killing 6,000,000 Jewish people in what the world comes to know as the Holocaust. The Germans enjoyed an improved economy and a military power under Hitler. European nations resorted to diplomatic solutions to stop the threat of Hitler's amassing armies, but Hitler simply used these to decieve the western nations. The Nazi Germans swept through Europe and had a successful beginning, defeating most of the Allied forces. One of Hitler's main targets was France, a sworn enemy of Germany's and generally one of Europe's more powerful alleged militaries. The French army decisively failed to stop Hitler's juggernaut despite having a manpower and tank force almost equal to that of Germany's. Hitler used a war tactic known as the blitzkrieg ''which literally means "lightning war" in German in which troops, tanks and planes pound one place at a time. Erwin Rommel (1891-1944), Hitler's best general - became a big driving force in the Germans' domination of Europe. The French defeat shocked, stunned and devastated the allies. Erwin Rommel was finally defeated during the Battle of El Alamein in Egypt by the British and American forces, and after the Allied D-Day invasion of Normandy. Hitler also tricked his Soviet counterpart - Stalin, to invade the Soviet Union by having the two sign the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. In the summer of 1941, Hitler's forces stepped onto Soviet soil opening the Eastern Front of World War II. The beginning reflected much of the western allies' struggles, the Soviets were unable to stop the Nazis. But Hitler's decision to fight a two-front war cost the Germans a victory. Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union backfired on him when the Nazis were overwhelmed and their machines malfunctioned under the wrath of the Russian winter. It also came after the Germans were defeated in the the Soviet cities of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) due to fierce Soviet resistance despite unleashing massive blitzkriegs in the cities and killing millions of Russians. These cities were the key to destroying the Soviet war machine, the plan was to starve and pummel the cities forcing the Soviets to surrender for safety. Hitler and his armies had not expected the Soviet resistance to be so strong. The German defeat at these three cities marked the beginning of the end of Hitler's invinsibility and shocked the Nazis. The Germans were chased back to Berlin where they were finally defeated by the rebuilt Soviet forces in 1945. 'Cold War' The Soviet victory in Berlin led to Germany' partition between the Soviet Union and the western powers. As the Cold War progressed after World War II, Germany became divided, the east was under the Soviet Union's control and the west was under NATO's (western power) control. Joseph Stalin wanted a weakened Germany, similar to its post-World War I state but the west wanted a strongly-rebuilt nation. Stalin blockaded East Germany's roads and tunnels against western vehicles. The United States responded by sending Berlin Airlift, dropping supplies and food via airplanes to Berlin. Following the fall of communism in eastern Europe, came the tearing of the Berlin Wall in 1989 - the Soviet Union dissoluted three years later in 1992. This reunified the German people and allowed the Germans as whole to open to western economy. Language The German language belongs to the western subfamily of the Germanic languages, a close relative of the English and Dutch languages. German is a world major language and has some 120,000,000 native speakers. German is the national languages of Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein. It is an official language in Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg. However, outside of Germany, the people of the mentioned countries do not consider themselves to be Germans, either by ethnic or national affiliation, and have developed their own national identities despite being native speakers of German. German is spoken as a minority language in Poland, Russia, Denmark, Italy and Kazakhstan. The language has its own unique version of the Latin script, that distinguishes it from other languages that use the Latin script. Most of the people in German diaspora do not speak German, and speak ther respective languages of the country they live in. Most German Americans or German Canadians speak only English and most of German diaspora in Latin America know only Spanish or Portuguese, those in the former Soviet Union may only know Russian. There is a group native to Germany known as the Bavarians, who make large contributions to mainstream German culture. They speak their own language, which is a Germanic language known as Bavarian, which has 13,000,000 speakers. There is also a dialect known as Judeo-German or Yiddish which is spoken by Jewish Germans living in Russia. The Yiddish language is written in the Hebrew script since Hebrew is Judaism's liturgical language. The Yiddish language contains some 1,000,800 native speakers. However despite being culturally associated with Germany and Central Europe, Yiddish-speakers do not consider themselves of the German ethnicity, favoring a distinct Jewish ethnic identity. Religion The religion of the German people show a reflection of their history. The Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant churches both have their foundations in Germany, and are the two largest denominations of the German people as a whole. Many Germans are Roman Catholics, since the territory inhabited by the German-speaking peoples were under occupation of the Holy Roman Empire. The Catholic church also helped the emergence of an ethnic identity in the area now known as Germany. Additionally, the German diaspora living in Latin American countries such as Argentina and Brazil are Roman Catholic. After Martin Luther criticized and left the Catholic church, the descendants of those Germans who followed Luther's teachings follow the Protestant churches. In contrast to the German diaspora in Latin America, those living in the English-speaking countries such as the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia are mostly Protestant. Most of German Protestants follow the Lutheran section of the Protestant church. However, religion has become a dwindling importance within Germany. Despite being Catholic or Protestants by affiliation, many Germans are actually agnostic and atheistic. Architecture German architecture is renowned for its high Gothic and Baroque influence. Most of Germany's churches and cathedrals are built entirely of Gothic architecture. When Germany started to become a modern-day military power, especially amid Hitler's Holocaust and the Cold War era, the architecture of Germany declined. Most of it became dominated by military bases and Holocaust death camps, resulting in an age of dullness and depression in German architecture. It was not all bad however, the Reichstag was built of Baroque influence, and is a historical landmark of German architecture. The Reichstag is also renowned for its high decore, which defied the dull architecture of its time. Today, is has been modified and added with modern features such as a glass dome. It was raided by Soviet soldiers upon the siege of Berlin in 1945 and reconstruction followed. The Ulm Cathedral is one of Germany and the world's famous cathedrals. Located in the city of Ulm, it is considered one of the earliest and first "skyscrapers". The highest point of the Ulm Cathdral is 530 ft! The Berlin Wall was built during Nikita Kruschev's era in the Soviet Union, which is the main example of the dullness in architecture that the Germans experienced during the Cold War. The Berlin Wall divided Berlin into a east-west section, showing a literal represenation of the enmity between the Soviet Union and NATO. The wall was torn down in 1989, shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union which resulted in the reunification of the German people. Cuisine German cuisine is a world famous cuisine that is renowned for its high use in grinded and ground meats. It shares similarities with other European cusines, such as Austrian and Swiss, and has largely influenced the cuisines of the United States and Poland. The main meats and poultries used in German cooking is pork, beef, chicken (the most common), duck, goose and turkey. Game is also used in German cooking, such meats include rabbits and venison. Goat and lamb are found in Germany, but they are not very popular with the German people. Sausages and sausage-making are one of the most important traditions of German cuisine. They are known as ''wurst in Germany, where more than 1,500 types of sausages and varieties are made. Causings are usually made from the intestines of pigs, sheep or lamb. Bratwurst is a popular sausage within German food. It usually is made of cow products like beef and veal, though pork bratwurst are also made. Bratwurst can also be eaten as a sandwich. Wiener is made from either pork, beef or a mixture, and cooked by boiling. Along with frankfurter (sausages from Frankfurt, Germany), these two sausages later influenced the creation of the hot dog, a popular American food that is commonly served on a bun and eaten during sporting events. Blutwurst, also known as schwarzwurst are blood sausages. Sauerkraut is a sour sauce which can be used a topping for dishes or eaten by itself. Breads and pastries are another the big staple ingredients of German cuisine. Popular breads such as pumpernickel originated from Germany. The original German style is made sourdough as opposed to the other sweet versions found throughout the world. Cakes are popular German dessert, schwarzwälder sirschtortes ''is a black forest cherry cake. German style doughnuts do not have holes and they contain jam or yeast inside. Out of all Germany, Bavarian cuisine is the most famous regional out of all. The ''Oktoberfest is a sixteen-day celebration in Bavaria, where beer is the central element. Notable Germans of People of German Origin Sources Category:Germany Category:Germans Category:German people Category:German language Category:Bavarians Category:Bavarian language Category:Oktoberfest Category:Nazis Category:Nazi German Category:Nazi Germany Category:Erwin Rommel Category:Mozart Category:Baroque era of music Category:Classcal era of music Category:Beethoven Category:Von Goethe Category:Van Goeth Category:Van Goethe Category:Dirk Nowitzki Category:Donald Trump Category:German American Category:German Americans Category:German Jews Category:Yiddish language Category:Roman Catholics Category:Roman Empire Category:Germania Category:Germanic people Category:Germanic languages Category:Central Europe Category:Roman Catholicism Category:Protestants Category:Protestantism Category:Protestant Reformation Category:Christins Category:Christians Category:Christianity